


The Haunted Logicality Concerto

by Padawan_Writer



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Library, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Dark Academia, Discussion of Major Character Death, Ghost Kissing, Haunted Library, Kissing, Logan is so dark academic, Logic | Logan Sanders Needs a Hug, Logic | Logan Sanders is Lonely, M/M, Major Character Death about 100 years before story begins, Morality | Patton Sanders is a Ghost, Past Character Death, They’re discussing it with his ghost so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29556555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Padawan_Writer/pseuds/Padawan_Writer
Summary: Logan, a lonely student at Oxford, finds comfort in going to the haunted library at night to practice his violin by candlelight. But tonight, one particular ghost who longs for human contact decides to accompany him at the piano...The dark academia logicality ghost au I’ve always wanted to write.Please read the tags for possible triggers!❤️
Relationships: Logic | Logan Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Comments: 14
Kudos: 41





	The Haunted Logicality Concerto

**Author's Note:**

> The piece that Logan and Patton are playing is Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2 (so much for an imaginative name that could have made a nice title for this fic haha) and it’s one of my absolute favourites. You can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS8hk0kL2sE (ao3 html links hate me, sorry)

Logan slipped out of his dark dormitory, his violin case tucked under his arm. Holding his raincoat over his head, he splashed across the old nighttime campus, through a stone archway, across the quad, through another stone archway and let himself into the old library. He breathed in the smell of dusty old books with relief, the stress of the day already leaving his shoulders. Here, at night, in his favourite corner of the library, there were no impossible expectations. No huge exams that soured the joy of studying and learning with stress. It was just him, the books, his music… and the ghosts.

As he always did, he ran his fingers along the books’ spines, some old and gilded, some new and shiny. Something about the library always wrapped his heart in warmth—in some strange way, just being there made him feel welcomed, accepted, happy.

He lit the candles he had brought with him, and set them in an alcove where they were in no danger, and placed his mother’s old silver backed hand mirror behind them, so that their light was fully reflected into the the room.

He opened his violin case. The rain was soothing outside the mullioned windows, and Logan was cosy in his wooly jumper and blazer. Here in the quiet was his time. He took out the violin, adjusted it, and positioned it on his shoulder. He set the bow to the strings and began to play one of his favourite pieces: Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2.

It was a piano concerto, a duet between violin and piano, but now Logan’s mother was no longer here to play piano to his accompaniment. She was far away in their lovely home in the country, and he was here, at boarding college, embracing the academic challenges but struggling to fit in and make real friends.

Logan pushed his thoughts of loneliness away, closed his eyes and focused on drowning himself in the mesmerising music. He could almost hear his mother’s piano accompaniment.

As the violin’s part grew softer, he found he could hear the piano more clearly. His eyes flicked open—yes, there could be no mistake, someone… someone was playing the piano in duet with him. Yet no one was awake at this hour, and the corner where the piano stood was dark.

Logan stopped playing. As soon as he did, the piano also stopped.

Tentatively, he put his bow the string and began to play again. The piano began too. 

Logan picked up a candle in its holder and approached the piano. He could see nobody, but the grand piano was set up to be played. He put the candle down on a nearby table so that it illuminated the piano and played the opening bars of the violin’s part of the concerto. As he played, the piano softly began its accompaniment, the keys dropping and the pedal working under invisible hands and feet. _A ghost._

Logan knew he should be afraid. At lease, that was the common reaction to ghosts, was it not? But Logan felt no cold dread, only curiosity and excitement. “Come out… come to me…” he whispered under his breath, hardly realising he was saying anything at all.

Perhaps it was just a trick of the light, but he could have sworn that something there had just reflected the candlelight in a little flicker of gold over that bench. A watch chain, or a button maybe. Logan strained his eyes to see as he played. There was a shape on that bench that could only be seen where dull ivory fabric and flickers of ornaments reflected.

“Who are you?” He asked softly, not breaking the music.

A warm whisper wrapped around him. _“You should be tucked up asleep,”_ it told him. 

Logan shivered, but not with fear. This was not what he had expected a ghost to say. It sounded almost as if it cared. “I don’t sleep well,” he confessed. “Real life is too much.” He played another gentle bar. “Music helps me relax.”

Gossamer threads weaved together above the piano seat, the music never breaking, transforming into the ethereal shape of a man. _“Music helps you relax.”_ He repeated. _“Music brings worlds together. That’s why I’m playing for you, old chap.”_ His voice was a strange mix of the divine and the comfortingly ordinary. An intimate turn of speech from a bygone era, and the wisdom that those passing years had brought.

“Who are you?” Logan asked again, straining his eyes to see the form that was rapidly gaining solidity, sitting on the piano seat, swaying to the music that filled the night library.

The ghost turned and smiled at him. _“They called me Patton. Patton is my name. I’m so lonely.”_

Logan’s heart broke a little. He knew exactly how the ghost felt. That aching emptiness haunted him too, every waking hour. “Me too,” he whispered. “Me too. That makes two of us.” He drew out a long shivering sad note on his violin.

 _“Let’s be friends then,”_ Patton said pleadingly. _“I’ve had no one for so long.”_ He never stopped playing the keys, and now his body seemed solid and real in the candlelight. 

Logan felt drawn to this… being, he wanted to spend all his nights with him, to talk about everything that was hurting him, to share his successes and joys, and to hear stories about the past. “I’ll be your friend,” he said quietly and firmly, his heart beating fast.

 _“And I’ll be yours, forever and ever,”_ Patton said.

“I’ll love you infinitesimally longer than that!” Logan smiled.

 _“You wrote that word in your paper this morning. You thought it means really big but it actually means really small,”_ Patton’s tinkling laugh mingled with the piano.

“Oh damn,” Logan said, not missing a note. “Thank you. You’re really—good.”

 _“No, I’m Patton!”_ the ghost said playfully.

The music swelled happily around them as Logan contemplated his new friend. Patton was as cheery as champagne and as sweet as a maraschino cherry, nothing like what Logan had expected a ghost to be like.

“How did you… become a ghost?” Logan asked, his curiosity overwhelming him.

 _“You love asking questions,”_ Patton observed.

“I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me,” Logan said, biting his lip and hoping that he hadn’t mad Patton angry with his inquisitiveness.

 _“I’m not angry, I love that in you,”_ Patton reassured him warmly, _“There was a plague outbreak in the school, many years ago. Many students succumbed to illness. I’m not the only one. We were given the job of guarding the school from any more evil like that, and of helping the students who came after us. I’ve been your guardian ever since you came here, old bean.”_

Logan scrambled fruitlessly for words, his mind filled with more questions. Did one offer condolences to a ghost for its own death? Who had given the ghosts their job? Why him? 

He took a step closer to the ethereal pianist, until he was almost close enough to touch him, and finally asked the most pressing question. “My… my guardian? Why?”

 _“Because I love you,”_ Patton said simply. _“Can’t you feel it?”_

Logan’s hand faltered on the bow.

He _could_ feel it, that feeling he had, whenever he came to the library, day or night, to play or study. That warmth… that warmth had a name to it now. He was loved. The violin stopped, but the ghostly piano continued.

“I’ve never loved a ghost before,” Logan whispered eventually.

Patton smiled, locking eyes with Logan, his own eyes filled with the whole universe. Logan was sure those were constellations he could see in them. _“You’ve never loved anyone before in that way but dreams and fictions.”_

“Love… eros…” Logan said, finding the Greek term expressed his meaning better, “eros has never come easily to me,” he admitted. “But you…”

 _“I’m more than a dream, but less than a living human,”_ Patton said.

Logan reached out his hand to Patton, with some idea of touching him.

With one sharp discord, Patton stopped playing. Unearthly silence filled the library.

He didn’t take Logan’s hand, but waited for Logan’s touch. Logan brushed his hand first over the shoulder of Patton’s jacket and then touched his cheek with the tips of his fingers. Patton was warm at the temperature of a human body… but it wasn’t like touching human flesh. It was like touching an object. No pulse thudded, no breath moved through the lungs, no blood flowed through the veins. It was akin to touching a hot water bottle or a woollen blanket or a cup of hot chocolate. Comforting… but not alive.

Logan supposed he should have felt repulsed, but he only felt relieved that it was not the far worse things he had imagined. It was comforting, and he felt even more relieved and drawn to this wraith. He put down his violin and cupped Patton’s face in both his hands.

Patton smiled up at him. _“You can kiss me if you like,”_ he whispered, his words reverberating through Logan’s heated blood. _“I’ve waited long enough for human touch.”_

With a stranger or one of his classmates, Logan would have felt horribly uncomfortable. But this was different. “Why would I want to do that?” he asked, his voice soft and low.

 _“For science, old chap. For curiosity. Because being dead for a hundred years is a most attractive quality in a man and makes me a worthy subject for a first kiss,”_ Patton said in good humour. 

Logan could not help but smile, his spirit soaring. Patton must have been a bubbly boy before the plague took him, and Death had not taken away his sparkling personality. “How about as a promise,” he said, “a promise that you won’t be alone any more.”

Patton’s voice was so soft that Logan could hardly hear his next words. _“That sounds… wonderful.”_

Logan took a deep breath, and, feeling almost as if he had been dared, leaned down and pressed his lips to Patton’s. Their kiss was as solemn and soaring and unearthly as the music. _I’m kissing a ghost,_ he thought. _Not for science. No, for a promise._ Patton’s lips felt soft and warm and lifeless beneath his. Logan felt nervous and earnest and happy all at the same time, and above all, very much alive. The whole world came sharply into focus: he could feel every heartbeat and rustle of wind and drop of rain on the roof as he rubbed his lips against Patton’s, tugging, tasting, living.

And then Patton began to kiss him back, and in a dizzying rush, he stood on the brink of the world, between living and dying. He gasped, drinking in the sensation that rushed between their two beings, holding on to Patton, holding that tenuous bridge of life and death that the passionate kiss had created. 

The glimpse of Heaven overwhelmed him, and he pulled back, panting, the taste of it still on his swollen lips.

Through the high old windows he glimpsed the first streaks of dawn. That confused him: it had barely been an hour past midnight when he had entered the library. His back and neck ached.

 _“I did not expect you to last so long, old bean,”_ Patton said. He seemed more insubstantial somehow.

“What do you mean?” Logan frowned, rubbing his neck and running his eyes over Patton. “Surely that can’t be the dawn?”

 _“It is, and it means I must go. We’ve been kissing for hours by your time.”_ Patton whispered.

“Hours?” Logan asked incredulously.

 _“Time runs faster in eternity…”_ Patton’s voice was fainter, the substance of his being vanishing as the morning light grew stronger.

“But I—“ Logan took in Patton’s fading and knew there was no time for more questions that night. “I’ll be back tomorrow, I promise,” he said, trying to take Patton’s hand but only feeling air.

 _“And I’ll be waiting for you…”_ the soft voice lingered.


End file.
